The dressing room ritual comes after maybe five minutes of trying to shop with anyone under the age of 5. Although dressing rooms are armed with security cameras, they prove to be an excellent place to completely lose your mind for a moment while shopping with children.
I find that cornering my children in a cubicle with a growl and bared teeth gives me a lurch of satisfaction not found anywhere else in this plane of existence.
Upon entering and bolting the door, I sit them down on the bench and take one of three tactics (depending on how far into the insanity phase I am. Meaning depending on how many threats I’ve already tried):
1) Completely Crazed Mother at Hand.
This is my favorite because I get to blow off a lot of steam. In this scenario, the children wonder if they’ve gone so far as to make me disregard female-only security staff and let them “have it” (mom terminology). I rant and rave, threaten and swear, point and grimace.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Friday, January 1, 2010
2010 Resolutions
For my GTWoman Magazine, these are my resolutions:
We will not promise everyone an article in the magazine and then have Kandy worry and wince and dread the true space available. Kandy will control her enthusiasm and say "no" when the issue is full. For those of you who get the brand new patented "no" — we are sorry. Actually, we'd like to direct you to Leann Foley, who we have hired as our bodyguard. (Assistant editor sounded better on her biz cards and when we offered her the job.)
We will not wait to find something to wear to our very own events the hour before we are to arrive for set-up. This means we may no longer smell like cardboard boxes and have folds forming squares over our chests and backs.
We will not promise everyone an article in the magazine and then have Kandy worry and wince and dread the true space available. Kandy will control her enthusiasm and say "no" when the issue is full. For those of you who get the brand new patented "no" — we are sorry. Actually, we'd like to direct you to Leann Foley, who we have hired as our bodyguard. (Assistant editor sounded better on her biz cards and when we offered her the job.)
We will not wait to find something to wear to our very own events the hour before we are to arrive for set-up. This means we may no longer smell like cardboard boxes and have folds forming squares over our chests and backs.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Mom's Morse (Xmas) Code
Christmas at our house was a mathematical undertaking. Our mom always made sure that us three girls (us and our sister Lori) had the same number of gifts and the same amount spent down to the dollar for each child. This required cosines and square roots and sliding rulers, but Mom did not shy away from the task at hand.
She kept track of everything on a single sheet of paper. More valuable than credit card numbers or passwords, this sheet of paper was folded and refolded, shoved into her purse and updated daily, or, on a good day, hourly.
And just when Mom thought she had the gift buying done, she would come upon a $50 sweater for a rare and insightful $20. Which meant she had to buy the other two daughters $20 gifts to "keep things even." (This meant the task of finding each one exactly a $20 gift — not two $10s or four $5s. No, the balance of number and dollar was pertinent.)
This kind of math drove Dad into a rage each year, which Mom settled by buying him another gift as well to "keep things even." The $30 savings? $80 all told.
As twins, though, we received the same exact presents growing up, which meant we had to open them at the same time or develop tunnel vision, which we did. (Handy for all things but driving).
New blouses? Kandy in green, Kerry in blue. Winter boots? One in black, the other brown. Earrings? Gold hoops for one, silver studs for the other.
But whenever Mom tried this daring departure from exactness, we usually ended up trading with each other, each coveting the other's. Sometimes Lori would get in on these gift exchanges, tossing in her striped blouse for a solid blue.
Often, post-opening was like a garage sale, each daughter dickering and bartering for this scarf or that shirt, the mound of wrapping paper and ribbons sometimes burying entire unseen and unopened gifts. Mom would sit back and watch this second round of shopping with pride in her eyes while Dad's bulged from their sockets.
But before opening even one gift, there was the trick of pairing them up, one for each girl so that no one ruined the other's surprise. This was easier in the younger days of awkwardly wrapped Tonka trucks, when tunnel vision and random deafness was (and still is) a child's calling card. But as toys gave way to shirt boxes, things got complicated.
For (a true-life, but Kandy doesn't want to discuss it) example, one of us would open a new coat, scream in excitement (to get everyone's attention, even the neighbor's) and try it on, doing a saunter in front of the other one who sat... with an enormous lumpy-in-the-middle flat box in her lap, home to the same coat (different color) or the world's largest pair of legwarmers.
One year, Mom decided to label the gifts by number so that we could both open "No. 1" at the same time, and so on. But, when she started rounding out into the double digits, alerting Dad to the budget at hand, she quickly switched to the unprecedented Morse code of Christmas. Phones were labeled "Fon," red turtlenecks "RT" and black pants "BP."
More exciting than the unwrapping was the cracking of Mom's Morse Code. We have great memories of sorting out our Morse packages, pairing them up and triumphantly guessing what was in each one.
Mom, still wrapping and coding (and re-coding) in the next room, would deny every guess, looking more and more perplexed (annoyed) at our FBI antics.
Oh, those were the days! Here's to all of us cracking the code to a happy holiday season.
She kept track of everything on a single sheet of paper. More valuable than credit card numbers or passwords, this sheet of paper was folded and refolded, shoved into her purse and updated daily, or, on a good day, hourly.
And just when Mom thought she had the gift buying done, she would come upon a $50 sweater for a rare and insightful $20. Which meant she had to buy the other two daughters $20 gifts to "keep things even." (This meant the task of finding each one exactly a $20 gift — not two $10s or four $5s. No, the balance of number and dollar was pertinent.)
This kind of math drove Dad into a rage each year, which Mom settled by buying him another gift as well to "keep things even." The $30 savings? $80 all told.
As twins, though, we received the same exact presents growing up, which meant we had to open them at the same time or develop tunnel vision, which we did. (Handy for all things but driving).
New blouses? Kandy in green, Kerry in blue. Winter boots? One in black, the other brown. Earrings? Gold hoops for one, silver studs for the other.
But whenever Mom tried this daring departure from exactness, we usually ended up trading with each other, each coveting the other's. Sometimes Lori would get in on these gift exchanges, tossing in her striped blouse for a solid blue.
Often, post-opening was like a garage sale, each daughter dickering and bartering for this scarf or that shirt, the mound of wrapping paper and ribbons sometimes burying entire unseen and unopened gifts. Mom would sit back and watch this second round of shopping with pride in her eyes while Dad's bulged from their sockets.
But before opening even one gift, there was the trick of pairing them up, one for each girl so that no one ruined the other's surprise. This was easier in the younger days of awkwardly wrapped Tonka trucks, when tunnel vision and random deafness was (and still is) a child's calling card. But as toys gave way to shirt boxes, things got complicated.
For (a true-life, but Kandy doesn't want to discuss it) example, one of us would open a new coat, scream in excitement (to get everyone's attention, even the neighbor's) and try it on, doing a saunter in front of the other one who sat... with an enormous lumpy-in-the-middle flat box in her lap, home to the same coat (different color) or the world's largest pair of legwarmers.
One year, Mom decided to label the gifts by number so that we could both open "No. 1" at the same time, and so on. But, when she started rounding out into the double digits, alerting Dad to the budget at hand, she quickly switched to the unprecedented Morse code of Christmas. Phones were labeled "Fon," red turtlenecks "RT" and black pants "BP."
More exciting than the unwrapping was the cracking of Mom's Morse Code. We have great memories of sorting out our Morse packages, pairing them up and triumphantly guessing what was in each one.
Mom, still wrapping and coding (and re-coding) in the next room, would deny every guess, looking more and more perplexed (annoyed) at our FBI antics.
Oh, those were the days! Here's to all of us cracking the code to a happy holiday season.
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